Coin counting machine



'Dec. 30, 1958 A. R. BficHHoLz ET AL .COIN COUNTING MACHINE Original Filed Aug. 17, 1955 6 Sheets-Sheet 1 IN VEN TORS Dec. 30, 1958 R. BUCHHOLZ ET AL 2,866,469

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COIN COUNTING MACHINE Original Filed Aug. 17, 1955 6 Sheets-Sheet 5 I ENTORJ 4. a

Dec. 30, 1958 A. R. BUCHHOLZ ETAL 2,866,469

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COIN COUNTING MACHINE Arnold R. Buchholz and Frank Haban, Watertown, Wis., assignors to Brandt Automatic Cashier Company, Watertown, Wis., a corporation of Wisconsin Original application August 17, 1955, Serial No. 528,940. Divided and this application March 14, 1957, Serial No. 646,107

3 Claims. (Cl. 133-8) The invention relates to coin counting machines.

The object of the invention is to provide in a coin counting machine of the type having a hopper provided with a rotary bottom plate by which coins therein are carried out to the sides of the hopper by centrifugal force, a means, operable through the mechanism controlling the positioning of the feed wheel, for guiding the coins in the hopper in a more direct path to the feed wheel during the counting and for deflecting the coins away from the exit opening or passage of the hopper when the feed wheel is inoperable.

This application is a division of our copending application Serial No. 528,940, filed August 17, 1955, for Coin Counting Machine.

The invention further consists in the several features hereinafter set forth and more particularly defined by claims at the conclusion hereof.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is a side elevation view of a coin counting machine embodying the invention, parts being broken away; Fig. 2 is a plan view of the coin counting machine;

Fig. 3 is a front elevation view of the coin counting machine;

Fig. 4 is a partial view of parts shown in Fig. 2 with parts of the mechanism broken away and parts shown in section;

Fig. 5 is a detailed vertical sectional view taken on the line 5-5 of Fig. 4;

Fig. 6 is a detailed vertical sectional view taken on the line 66 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 7 is a detailed vertical sectional view taken on the line 77 of Fig. 5;

Fig. 8 is a detailed vertical sectional view taken on the line 8-8 of Fig. 5;

Fig. 9 is a detailed vertical sectional view taken on the line 99 of Fig. 1.

Referring to Figs. 2 to 4 of the drawings, as in. all machines of this general type, a counter C is provided whose shaft carries a bevel gear 1 meshing with a bevel gear 2 on an upright shaft 3 carrying a coin operated star wheel 4, the coins being fed past said wheel 4 by a feed wheel 5 as they are delivered to said wheel through an adjustable exit opening 6 at one side of a hopper 7 whose bottom 8 is in the form of a disk or round plate carried by a vertically disposed shaft 9 extending through a top plate 10 and carrying a spiral gear 11 meshing with a gear 12 on the main drive shaft 13 (see Fig. 9). The drive shaft 13 is operatively connected with the output side of a gear reduction unit 14 whose input side carries a pulley 15 connected by a belt 16 to a pulley 17 on the shaft of a motor M (see Fig. l). The drive shaft 13 also carries a pulley 18 connected by a belt 19 with a pulley 20 on the feed wheel carrying shaft 21. The belt 19 is tensioned by a roller 22 engageable therewith and carried by an arm 23 mounted to swing on a fixed stud 24 and urged to tensioned position by a spiral spring 25.

As in the prior U. S. Patent No. 2,378,828, dated June 19, 1945, to A. R. Buchholz et al., a vertically adjustable gate 26 determines the effective height of the discharge 3 United States Patent 0 opening 6 from the hopper and is vertically adjustable by the turning of a screw shaft 27 carrying a handle 28.

Referring to Fig. 4, a gauge member 29 in the form of a lever pivoted at 30 is operatively connected by a pin 31 to a deflector plate 32 having a slotted extension 33 adapted to be locked in a settable width position by a hand clamp 34. The adjustment of the gauge member 29 determines the width of the exit opening 6 to suit the diameter of the particular denomination of coins being counted.

Referring to Figs. 2, 3, 4, and 6, the shaft 21 is mounted through its mounting in the hub of the pulley 20 in a bearing 35 in a housing member 36 pivoted on a fixed pin 37 to permit vertical swinging movement of the shaft 21. The housing member 36 also has a collar portion 38 in which another bearing 39 for the shaft 21 is slidably mounted, said bearing member provided with a pin extension 40 working in a slot 41. The feed wheel 5 is pinned to the shaft 21 and is also mounted to move lengthwise with the bearing portion 39 by interposing said hearing portion between the hub of the feed wheel and a collar 43 also pinned to the shaft. The shaft 21 has a splined connection 44 with the hub portion of the pulley 20 so that it can slide lengthwise relative thereto. The shaft 21 with its feed wheel is normally urged toward the left as viewed in Fig. 6 by a spring 45. The feed wheel 5 is normally urged to an inoperative position or rendered inoperative by -a spring 46 interposed between the frame and the housing 36. The feed wheel 5 with its shaft 21 is swung down against the pressure of the spring 46 to a feeding position, rendering it operative, by mechanism more particularly shown in Fig. 5.

This mechanism includes a solenoid S6 whose plunger 47 is operatively connected by a two-part spring cushion link 48 with the intermediate portion of a lever 49 pivoted at 50 on the frame of the machine and pivotally connected at its upper end by a pin 51 to a pair of push rods 52 and 53 guided on rollers 54 and 55. The push rod 52 is provided with a wedge surface 56 engageable with a roller 57 on a thrust member 58 slideably mounted in the frame of the machine and in thrust engagement with one arm of a bell crank lever 59 pivoted at 60. The other arm of the bell crank lever has a contact screw 61 adjustably mounted thereon and engageable with the portion 38 of the housing 36, the screw 61 having a settable connection with the lever 59 by the turning of a manually adjustable collar 62 so that the adjustment of the screw 61 compensates for wear of the rubber surface of the feed wheel 5. Energization of the solenoid S6 causes the plunger 47 operating through the link 48 and the lever 49 to move push rod 52 toward the right, thereby pushing upwardly through roller 57 and its rod 58 on the lower arm of the lever 59 and thus swinging the screw carrying arm of said lever downwardly and hence the housing 36 for the feed wheel downwardly, thereby carrying the feed wheel 5 and its shaft 21 downwardly to bring the feed wheel into feeding engagement with the coins. On deenergization of the solenoid a spring 63 connected to the lever 49 acts to bring the push rod 52 back to the position shown in dotted lines in Fig. 5 and the other parts to a position which permits the spring 46 to act on the housing 36 to move the feed wheel 5 upwardly into the inoperative position. Push rod 53 being connected to the lever 49 is moved at the same time as the push rod 52 and as shown in Fig. 4 has a wedge projection 64 adapted to engage a roller 65 on a coin deflector member 66 working in a slot in the hopper adjacent its bottom and pivotally mounted on a pin 67 on the outside of the hopper housing. When the feed wheel is in operative position as shown in Figs. 5 and v4, the deflector member 66 is in the position shown in Fig. 4 being urged to this position by the coins as they travel with and relative to the bottom 8. When, however, the feed wheel 5 is moved to its inoperative position by the spring 46, the push rod 53is moved toward the left as viewed in Fig. 4, and in doing so its wedge projection 64 engages the roller 65 and swings the deflector member 66 outwardly to the dotted line position. When the deflector member 66 is in its full line position, it projects to some extent from the outer side wall of the hopper so that as the coins are carried around by the rotating bottom plate 8, they will be deflected by this member 66 away from the outer wall of the hopper at this side of the machine and will tend to move free of this side wall as they are carried by the plate to the exit opening 6. When the deflector member 66 is moved to its dotted line position, then the coins will be still further deflected away from the side wall and also to a great extent from moving in a direct line to the opening 6 and will tend to be moved away from this opening and be carried along past a fixed plate 68 that forms part of the side wall of the exit opening adjacent the star wheel 4.

Usually the feed wheel, such as the feed wheel 5, is fixedly positioned relative to the exit opening so that it always comes down into coin engaging position in the same area of the exit opening, and as a result it engages the different denominations of coins at different points in their area, and because of this has a tendency to twist the coin as it is carried by the feed wheel past the star wheel 4. This twisting of the coin relative to the feed wheel acts to produce a wear on the rubber tired surface of the wheel since the twisting action on the coins may be greater than a five percent twist which would be within the flexing point of the rubber without exceeding its shear point. As a consequence, in the present invention the feed wheel 5 is adapted to be shifted lengthwise of its bearings so as to bring the center of the wheel into the approximate center of the coin of any denomination that is being fed past the star wheel 4 to prevent the wear producing twisting action. For this purpose the pin on the collar 39 is adapted to engage a lever 69 pivoted on the pin 70 carried by a block 71 mounted on the top plate 10, the lever 69 being operatively connected at its other end to the pin 31 carried by the lever 29 so that the levers 69 and 29 move together, but the lever 69 only goes half the distance of the lever 29 when the gauge plate including the member 33 is adjusted. Thus since the lever 69 engages the pin 40 of the bearing member 39, adjustment of the levers 29 and 69 will move the bearing 39 and consequently the feed wheel 5 lengthwise relative to the exit opening 6 in such a ratio as to bring the center of the wheel 5 into a central plane of the width of the opening 6 that has been predetermined by the adjustment of the lever 29 through the movement of the plates 32 and 33 by the operator, it being noted that the spring urges the pin 40 in contact with the lever 69 so that when said lever and its associated lever 29 move, the whezl will also be moved transversely of the exit openmg The feed wheel 5 when in operative position acts to carry the coins of any selected denomination, one at a time, into contact with and past the star wheel 4 through a discharge chute 72 which leads downwardly from the front end of the machine and is operatively connected as in prior patents such as the U. S. Patent No. 2,669,997, of February 23, 1954, to E. W. Quirk and A. R. Buchholz, to a discharge tube 73 which is suitably tiltably mounted upon a pin 74 so that it may be moved to engage a spring pressed plunger 75 that acts on a crank member 76 which is suitably pivoted in the frame of the machine and has an arm 77 engageable with a push bar 78 which is used to reset the predetermined count mechanism at the end of each packaging operation. As the coins from the hopper are carried past the star wheel 4 by the feed wheel .5, the star wheel 4 is advanced one tooth for each coin,

and through the bevelled gears 1 and 2 the counter C records the passage of each coin.

We desire it to be understood that this invention is not to be limited to any particular form or arrangement of parts except in so far as such limitations are included in the claims.

What we claim as our invention is:

1. In a coin counting machine, the combination of a hopper having an exit opening and provided with a rotary bottom plate whereby coins on said plate are carried outwardly by centrifugal force toward the side of the hopper as they are advanced to said opening, a movable deflector means normally projecting inwardly from said hopper to direct coins away from the side of said hopper as they approach said exit opening, a coin operated member, a feed wheel for advancing coins from said exit opening past said member, means for moving said feed to an operative and inoperative position, and means operable by said feed wheel moving means for moving said deflector means further inwardly relative to said hopper when said feed wheel is moved to its inoperative position to further direct the coins away from the side of said hopper so that they will be moved away from said exit opening and past the same.

2. In a coin counting machine, the combination of a hopper having an exit opening and provided with a rotary bottom plate whereby coins on said plate are carried outwardly by centrifugal force toward the sides of the hopper as they are advanced to said opening, a coin operated member, a tiltable feed wheel for advancing coins from said exit opening past said member, means normally acting to tilt said feed wheel to an inoperative position, and means including a lever operatively connected with said feed wheel, a thrust member operatively connected to said lever and a wedge member engageable with said thrust member to move the same to move said feed wheel to its operative position, a movable deflector member projecting inwardly from said hopper to direct the coins away from the side wall of said hopper as they approach said exit opening when said feed Wheel is in its operative position, and means operatively connected to said wedge member to move said deflector member further inwardly relative to said hopper when the feed wheel moves to its inoperative position to further direct the coins away from the side of the hopper so that they will be moved away from said exit opening and past the same.

3. In a coin counting machine, the combination of a hopper having an exit opening and provided with a rotary bottom plate whereby coins on said plate are carried outwardly by centrifugal force toward the side of the hopper as they are advanced to said opening, a coin operated member, a tiltable feed wheel for advancing coins from said exit opening past said member, means normally acting to tilt said feed wheel to an inoperative position, a pair of reciprocatory thrust members, means operatively connecting one of said thrust members to said feed wheel to tilt it to operative position, a common actuator for said thrust members, a movable deflector member projecting inwardly from said hopper to direct coins away from the side wall of said hopper as they approach said exit opening when said feed wheel is in its operative position, the other of said thrust members having a wedge surface engageable with said deflector member to move the same further inwardly relative to said hopper when the feed wheel moves to its inoperative position to further direct the coins away from the side of the hopper so that they will be moved away from said exit opening and past the same.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,080,381 Smith Dec. 2, 1913 2,152,952 Brandt ct al. Apr. 4, 1939 2,669,997 Quirk et a1 Feb. 23, 1954 2,750,949 Kulo et a1. June 19, 1956 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION Patent No, 2,866,469 December 30, 1958 Arnold R Buchholz at al,

It is hereby certified that error appears in the printed specification of the above numbered patent requiring correction and that the said Letters Patent should read as corrected below.

ines'45 and 46, for "settable connection" read we settable column 4, lines 15 and 16, for moving said moving said feed Wheel to an operative =o Column 2, 1 adjustable connection feed to an operatiye" read Signed and sealed this 9th day of June 1959.

(SEAIQ Attest:

KARL Ha AXLINE Attesting Officer ROBERT C. WATSON Commissioner of Patents 

